StereoGrid is the easiest way to get your music in front of music bloggers, press, and your fans. We do a few things really well:

1) Send a well-designed email announcement of your new release to your press list (If you don’t have a press list, its ok. This is also completely optional).

2) Announce your music to the StereoGrid Network of music bloggers and press who login to our platform daily to listen to and receive new music.

3) Connect you with your fans. Once a music blog (or you) post your music on any website with our media player widget, fans enter their email address to download your song. We then give you to export these email addresses so you can email your fans new music in the future either through StereoGrid or through another fan email platform.

Please note that all releases you create will be associated with the Facebook account that you login with. So, if multiple people need access to your releases, you may want to create a Facebook account just for StereoGrid.

Create a Release

Creating a release with StereoGrid is extremely easy. Either upload a song or import one from SoundCloud. Add details about your release and off you go!

In this step you can also specify whether or not your song is available for download or stream-only.

Send the Song to your Press List

We highly recommend that you email your song to your press list. Bloggers and press that are already familiar with your music are most likely to post your music. You can also make your music exclusive to your press list if you don’t want other bloggers or press outlets on StereoGrid to receive your music.

Get Some Press Love!

Once your song is live on any website we start reporting analytics back to your StereoGrid account. We tell you who posted your song live, the # of plays, # of downloads, and # of social shares.

Collect Fan Email Addresses

When your fans download your music we collect their email address. We give you all these email addresses when you unlock Premium Analytics for our song (Only $5 per release or $30/month for unlimited releases).

Song Analytics

Unlock Premium Analytics for your song for $5 or for $30/month get unlimited analytics. We then show you detailed analytics on how your song is performing on the StereoGrid Network. You can also Export all of the fan email addresses that have been collected for you via our media players.

When you unlock Premium Analytics we also tell you exactly what websites posted your song live and the resulting activity.

It’s been a long time, shouldn’t of left you…(c) Timbaland. We’re back with another edition of the Blogger Q+A, this week we talk to The Downcast. We talk history of the blog, how to improve as a brand & methods for discovering new music…

When, How & Why did you start The Downcast?

I started the Downcast last year because I thought Pitchfork was trying too hard to piss off the NPR crowd; and NPR was trying too hard to make the Prius / farmer’s market crowd feel good about cranking up mediocre, rounded pop/rock/soul. I actually do like Pitchfork. I think MTV, Rolling Stone and NPR are good at making money, but they’re killing more daring, badass music by supporting lowest-common-denominator, rounded, warm/cool jazz sedative dribble. people don’t need help sleeping. they need to wake up. The Downcast is an alarm clock.

What are some things Bloggers/Artists can do to improve themselves as a brand in your opinion?

Start now. Go with your first instinct. Beg for criticism from people that are different from you. Don’t compromise to get something (like money or an interview); compromise to become something (for example, the Downcast don’t compromise to get more readers, but we do compromise to become a louder alarm clock). If you’re not trying to do something extraordinary, then you’re wasting our time. And finally, don’t ever quit; change, rest, start over, but don’t stop.

What does The Downcast do to separate itself from other music blogs?

Our mix and our edges. As far as mix? Right now our home page features material by Muta (Denver glitch-core electronica), Elder (epic, sweeping stoner rock), Charli XCX (dark-wave electro pop), Shabazz Palaces (avant hip-hop), Boomrunner (80s noise-pop rock like Mudhonney, Bleach-era Nirvana or Sonic Youth), and Laura Gibson (Oregon-bred country folk). I’m not sure many websites are mixing it up like that. As far as the edges? I don’t know any blogs covering the same combination of fringes we do (Low End Theory electronica, grainy sample-driven hip-hop, stoner rock, dark-wave pop, etc).

What are your methods for discovering new music?

Walking around Amoeba Records (Hollywood), going to shows around LA, talking to friends, email from bands / PR / record labels and other internet channels (blogs, FB, twitter). I’ll look anyplace. Almost anyplace. Spotify, Pandora and the like are pretty whack. They do the same thing NPR / MTV / Rolling Stone do… they apply formulas, mathematics to art. Yawn.

For this week’s Blogger Q+A we talk to DJ Pizzo of HipHopSite. We discuss the history of HipHopSite, what catches his ear as a blogger/DJ & the advantages of being a genre specific blog.

Where, How & Why did you start HipHopSite?

I started HipHopSite.Com in 1997 – it was one of the first, pioneering rap websites to deliver up-to-date news, reviews, and new music on a regular basis.

What do you think uniquely defines HipHopSite?

Pretty much our long history, as a site that had helped jumpstart the indie hip-hop movement of the late 90′s and early 00′s. We’ve been responsible for introducing countless artists to the internet audience, long before they we’re popular, such as Eminem, RJD2, Little Brother, DJ Danger Mouse, and tons more. We also still write album reviews regularly, and have an archive of about 3000 full-length reviews written over the last 15 years.

Which albums/mixtapes have caught your attention in 2011?

Mixtapes, definitely Kendrick Lamar’s Section 80 and Big Krit’s Return of 4Eva. On the album tip, there have been a ton of great releases from everyone. On the indies, I’m loving Action Bronson and Statik Selektah’s “Well Done”, People Under The Stairs “Highlighter”, Evidence “Cats and Dogs”, Apathy “Honkey Kong”. Major label LP’s that have been good this year include Drake, DJ Shadow, Bed Meets Evil, and Raekwon.

What are your methods for discovering new artists?

As a DJ, I listen to everything. A lot of being a great DJ – and blogger – is introducing your audience to new music and new artists, so I give everything a fair shake. I like to always be ahead of the curve.

Do you think theres any disadvantages for being a genre specific blog? Why/Why not?

Yeah, there are. I feel hip-hop is pretty stale right now, so it’s nice to use the site to help introduce people to stuff that would otherwise fly under the radar. However, I listen to other forms of music as well. I’m heavily into House Music right now, and have considered starting a secondary blog for House… only time will tell.

For this week’s edition of our Blogger Q+A, we talk to Chris of Keep It Trill. We talk about how Keep It Trill was started, the disadvantages of being a genre specific blog & his methods for discovering new music.

Where, How & Why did you start Keep It Trill?

A combination of things really led toward the creation of Keep It Trill. I had the chance to befriend the late Pimp C of UGK about a year before he passed away. At the time, I was working at the airport in Houston and going to school. After having a bunch of conversations with him, I sort of became motivated to “be my own boss” and start working for myself.

I quit my job at AirTran and moved up to Atlanta with my parents for a couple years while I continued school and tried starting my own business. I was focusing on simple things like myspace promotion and design, since at the time that was THE big thing, and I had a jump on it after maintaining the pages for Bun B and Pimp C. Other than that, I had a pretty limited vision of where I wanted to go and what my ultimate goals were, so that’s when my best friend from Florida, Adi, said he would invest in me, become my business partner, and really start to outline a path for us.

We registered Trill Promotions Group, LLC as a business and set up TrillPromotions.com, offering services like CD duplication, myspace design, cd artwork & flyer design, and stuff Iike that. During the same time, I had been talking with Pimp C and how he wanted to start a social networking type of website, like myspace, but called “Fly Space”. I wasn’t really sure how to proceed and when he died, an influx of traffic came to our website since we were the first to put out a public letter on the web from some of his family. We started making updates about him and his family, funeral plans and things like that after his death, so that’s when we decided to create KeepItTrill.com, giving people updates on all southern-hip hop related topics. The name of Keep It Trill was pretty much a tribute to Pimp C himself and to carry on his legacy with the use of the word “Trill”.

What do you think uniquely defines Keep it Trill from other music blogs?

I think the professionalism is mostly what separates us. We use a word-press/blog content management system, but we usually aren’t quite as laid back and personal with our content as with most blogs. We really like to consider ourselves as a media outlet rather than a blog. We focus more on developed stories, rather than a quick blog update on a topic with only a couple of sentences. The overall layout and structure of our site, we think, is more user friendly and not disorganized and jumbled together like most blogs. We also try to keep a mostly southern-feel to our site and heavily cater to the Texas/Louisiana audience, due to our name, although we do try to stay somewhat diverse and keep an open ear to what’s going on in other regions of the country.

Do you think there’s a disadvantage to being a genre specific blog? Why or why not?

Definitely. Any time you try to stay within a certain niche audience, you can’t necessarily post anything you want without receiving some sort of back lash. If we started posting a lot of Beyonce or Justin Bieber, we would probably receive some hate content in our comments. This can also limit potential growth of the site, but at the same time, can gain you a pretty loyal following. We have created MixtapeWire.com and AutoFixx.com to reach a more diversified audience.

What albums/mixtapes have caught your attention in 2011?

For mixtapes, Big K.R.I.T.’s Return of 4Eva has to be my favorite, along with Da Underdawgz The 1st One Is For Pimp. As for albums, most people would probably expect us to say Pimp C’s Still Pimping, but I heard a lot of the original music from that album, before Rap-A-Lot retooled the songs and added new beats, so that kind of ruined the album for me. I think Trae Tha Truth’s Street King was a pretty solid album and I think Rick Ross’ God Forgives, I Don’t may be one of the best albums of the year, when it comes out in December, as long as there isn’t too much Lex Luger produced tracks. I like Lex Luger, I think he just gets a little to redundant. I’m also looking forward to Young Jeezy’s TM103.

What are your methods for discovering new artists/music?

We really receive sooooo many e-mails every hour of every day, we pretty much just scan through that in our spare time and will post something if we like it. What I can tell aspiring artists is this: If you look or sound like somebody else then we probably won’t give you a chance. We want to support someone who has their own sound and identity. We also can’t stand it when we receive music that says “track 1”, or when receive e-mails full of bad grammar. If you don’t take yourself seriously, how do you expect someone else to take you seriously? 95% of the music industry is business and politics, the other 5% is talent.

For this week’s installment of the uber-popular Blogger Q+A series, we got to talk to Confusion from Pigeons & Planes. Confusion tells us about the history of P&P, what defines his blog from the rest & what artist content catches his attention best.

When, How & Why did you start Pigeons & Planes?

I started it at the end of 2008. It was a spur of the moment thing. I had no plan, no intentions to go anywhere. I just looked into it, realized how easy it was to set up, and started writing. I don’t think I told anyone I even started it. A few days later I told my girlfriend at the time. I still remember getting 100 hits one day and celebrating my success.

What do you think uniquely defines Pigeons & Planes, compared to other music blogs?

I feel like P&P has a soul. It sounds stupid, but when you read a lot of blogs you get a lifeless, machine-like feel. We aren’t just robotically pumping out posts. Sometimes we say “I.” Sometimes we throw in little pieces of ourselves. We hand-pick things instead of just posting exactly what everyone else is posting. Over the years, we’ve gotten more professional and better at what we do (fact checking, writing, working directly with artists and labels, etc.) but we still have that human touch. And good taste.

What type of artist content or pitch gets your attention best?

I guess the pitches that get my most attention are the simple ones that make it easy to check out the music. When it comes to indie/unknown artists, it all depends on the music. If I get an email with 20 attachments, a short story’s worth of writing, and links to everything the artist has ever done, I’m not likely to check it out. If I see a simple message with one song, and if I like that song, I’m going to do what I can to support.

What albums/mixtapes/artists have been in your heavy rotation in 2011?

Right now I’m really loving the Youth Lagoon album, The Year In Hibernation. I’m still listening to Kendrick Lamar’s Section.80 a good amount and ASAP Rocky’s new tape. I’m also really loving this new indie band called Shadows On Stars. Some other artists I’m feeling are The Weeknd, Skizzy Mars, Cults, G-Eazy, Icona Pop, Danny Brown, e-dubble, Atmosphere, Foster the people, and a lot of obscure shit that I find on the internet. Drake is killing it this year–his album is going to be huge. And Watch The Throne only gets better with time. I listen to so much music every day it’s hard to even just name a few. Despite listening to new music all the time, I also listen to a lot of old music on a regular basis–Elliott Smith’s Either/Or, Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. They’re all in heavy rotation as this cold weather comes in to NYC. You’ve gotta have those seasonal favorites, you know? I’ve also been recently listening to a lot of techno. Just kidding, nobody listens to techno. It’s terrible.

Any advice to any up-coming artists that are looking to attract attention?

Pretty much everyone who catches a big break (based on their music–connections is a different story) gets it because they’re doing something differently. If you see some new trend coming along, don’t get sucked in by it. Be yourself, do what you think is cool, and try to do it so well that other people start to think it’s cool too. And be really fucking passionate. That’s lacking in today’s music world, and when listeners pick up on it, it’s contagious.

For this week’s Q+A, we shine the spotlight on the blog Rap Genius. We spoke to the website’s founder, Mahbod, about the increasingly popular blog , asked about the hardest song to ever have been “decoded,” and discussed what a day of running Rap Genius is like. Enjoy.

When, How & Why did you start Rap Genius?

My boy Tom asked me about the line “80 holes in your shirt: there your own Jamaican clothes” on Killa Cam’s Family Ties – the explanation I gave him was actually wrong LOL – but somebody fixed it. THANK GOD: http://rapgenius.com/Camron-family-ties-lyrics

In your opinion, what has been the hardest song to figure out that yourself or the Rap Genius community has had to crack?

Google wants to launch its music download service as soon as possible, a source tells Hypebot. Team Google reportedly believes that a unique music sharing feature combined with its own social network Google+ will set it apart from competitors. In fact, the pressure to launch is so strong that it may move forward without all of the major labels aboard.

Sony is reportedly taking the often heard position that Google does not do enough to fight piracy. Getting further in bed with the company, according to Sony, sends the wrong message.

Warner Music simply wants more money, according to the WSJ. Google’s music locker is free and Apple is about to launch music-locker iTunes Match, charging $25 a year and reportedly sharing 70% of that with the labels.

Some call today hump day, we here at Stereogrid see it as Blogger Q+A day. This week we talk to Alex Young of Consequence of Sound. He tells us what separates CoS from other blogs & gives advice to any aspiring bloggers out there.

When, How & Why did you start Consequence of Sound?

I started Consequence of Sound in September 2007 while still a student at Fordham University. It was initially intended to be a hobby, but after meeting the publication’s eventual Editor in Chief, Mike Roffman, it quickly snowballed into a full-fledged publication. You could say the rest is history.

At the moment, we have a committed staff that works around the clock, posting news, album and live reviews, and exclusive features. We also have a video team, and throw a number of live events every year. Again, none of this was intentional.

What albums/artists/songs have been in your heavy rotation this year?

Foo Fighters, St. Vincent, Bon Iver, M83, The Throne to name a few.

What does Consequence of Sound do to separate itself from other music blogs?

I think there are a number of things. First and foremost, we offer an outlet that bridges the worlds of indie and mainstream — sort of like how a music festival works. Because one’s musical tastes are often vast and span many genres, our coverage scope is the same. One minute, we might post about Jay-Z and Beyonce, the next it could be about Atlas Sound and Girls. Basically, we seek to provide a welcoming environment for any and all music fans, a place to both learn and stay informed.

Folks can also count on us to always be there. We work 365/24/7 — literally. I think I wrote 8 stories last Christmas! But, seriously, news is one of our main focuses and news happens all the time, day or night. It requires a lot of energy, and a lack of sleep, but we think and know we do it better than anyone else

Finally, our various microsites. Our Festival Outlook is the only website in the U.S. that provides a constantly updated database of festival news and updates. Our relatively new video channel, Cluster 1, is increasingly offering more exclusive premieres, in addition to amazing short films, interviews, and original content. We also have a number of other awesome features in the works, so stay tuned.

How does a new artist catch your ear?

A lot of different ways. It may be via a press release, or at a music festival. A lot of our staff members, like Jeremy Larson (our Content Director) and Winston Robbins (our Production Coordinator) are constantly hipping us to rising acts. I also read a ton of other blogs; TwentyFourBit, Some Kind of Awesome, Antiquiet, Knox Road, and We Listen For You are some ones worth checking out.

Do you have any advice for any aspiring bloggers looking to set themselves from the pack?

Hey it’s Wednesday, which means it’s time for our weekly blogger Q+A session. This week we talk to Jessica Page of Music Vagabond. We touch on what music she’s been into in 2011, as well as advice for up & coming bloggers.

When, How & Why did you start Music Vagabond?

I believe I started Music Vagabond in November of 2009. That would make it nearly two years ago. I started MV because my best friend from college had moved to Colorado. We had always been really in to music and had seen numerous live shows together throughout college. I was bummed that she was living so far away and I also had time to kill because I was working part time. So I shot her an e-mail and asked her if she would like to start-up a music blog. I also contacted a few of my friends that lived around the country to see if they would be interested and then we went from there.

What albums/artists/songs have been in your heavy rotation this year?

Personally, I’ve been listening to EMA, Tune-Yards, Antlers, Mutual Benefit, Atlas Sound, Wild Flag, Holy Oak, Made In Heights, ASAP Rocky, The Kills, Gross Magic, Gary Clark Jr., White Denim, Pearl and The Beard, Active Child, Shabazz Places, Braids, The Weeknd and many more, but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head.

What does Music Vagabond do to separate itself from other music blogs?

We have a lot of writers with varying tastes from around the country that contribute regularly. That makes for great blend of genres. Just when I think I’ve heard it all one of our writers throws me a curve ball. We also do a yearly anniversary party with our friends over at The Pantry Party which is a non-profit that gives back to local food pantries. For every can of food you bring to the event you get a dollar off your admission.

How does a new artist catch your ear?

I have my ear to the ground, but I get a lot of submissions and I’m always tweeting with other bloggers. I’ve been using ex.fm since it was in beta to help with the discovering process. I now work there so it may seem like a plug, but really it’s the best discovery tool I have every come across.

Do you have any advice for any aspiring bloggers looking to set themselves from the pack?

Stay true to what you like. Don’t blog about artists because everyone else is too. If you’re really passionate about it then put yourself out there. Go meet bands and talk to other bloggers in real life. You never know what it will lead to. Everyone can write a blog, but it’s always nice to put a face and personality to the name.

It’s hump day, which means it’s time for our weekly Blogger Q+A. This week we talk to Arjan of ArjanWrites. We talk about what albums he’s been playing in 2011 & what makes his blog unique from all the rest.

When, How & Why did you start ArjanWrites?

I started writing ArjanWrites.com in 2002. I had an incredible passion for new music and by writing the blog my intent was to share that passion with other people. I celebrate great and new music, and the things that inspire it.

What songs/artists/albums have gotten your attention in 2011?

Here’s a random selection of albums I’ve played recently on my Rdio.com station:

What do you think uniquely defines ArjanWrites compared to other music blogs?
What defines ArjanWrites.com in general is that it’s informative, introduces new music and tells the story behind the music. I take a journalistic approach to everything I do.

In your opinion, what is the best way for a new artist/band to get their music heard?

Make great music, do something unique. Share it with people online and build a scene around what you do.

What would you suggest to other music blogs looking to set themselves apart from the pack?